The Tweed Heads & Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club is officially recognised as the oldest surf lifesaving club in Queensland – Established 1911.
In the early 1900s, dentists, Mr Harold Bennett and his brother, visited their Tweed Heads practice room once a month. The brothers were members of a Sydney lifesaving club and realised that the Tweed Heads surfing community required some form of life saving support.
In 1908, Bondi Baths Life Saving Club provided a line and belt to Harold to assist the formation of a Surf Life Saving Club at Tweed Heads. At this time Greenmount Beach was known as the Tweed Heads Beach.
During the 1908 – 1909 Christmas New Year period, members of the Bondi Club visited the area during a promotional tour and gave demonstrations of land drills and surf reel line and belt work.
A group of young men were encouraged by the exhibition and arrangements were made for the formation of a local Surf Life Saving Club, which was named the Tweed Heads Surf and Life Saving Club. A local committee purchased the reel line and belt used by the touring Bondi members and the first fully equipped lifesaving reel was established on a Queensland beach.
The Club was re-constituted on the 13th of March 1911 at a well attended public meeting. It was proposed that the Club be called The Tweed Heads & Coolangatta Life Saving Club, with the motion carried unanimously. The first club house was opened 6 months later on the 13th of September. Since the Clubs formation, a life has never been lost on Greenmount Beach while members have been on patrol.
The first clubhouse, a humble timber building, was replaced in 1936 with a more elaborate pavilion. One end of the building was leased to the surf club. The current clubhouse was built over and around the existing pavilion building in 1956 and has been altered over the years to accommodate the needs of the club. The club has always attracted large summer crowds and was particularly popular during the 1950s when the famous Hokey Pokey, hosted by Doug Roughton, was danced on the lawn by big crowds and Sunday concerts were the norm.
A group of Old Boys who were looking to increase the numbers of younger people involved with the club established the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta SLSC Nippers on November 13 1966. The rest of the point danger branch followed several years later. The nippers have steadily grown over the decades where 13 – 18 year olds represent 30 percent of our patrolling members.